MontyMon’s 2-10 February ’08 TR

This would have been done a lot faster if I hadn’t had to download all 539 pics from my camera to my computer ONE AT A TIME! And if a certain someone hadn’t constantly interrupted while I was composing… LOL!

Day One – Arrival & DHS

DS12 and I flew direct Ottawa-MCO, arriving at 2:44PM. DME whisked us to the Polynesian [even with stops at WL and Contemporary it was still quick], we checked in and found our room [Fiji 2320] and we were at Disney’s Hollywood Studios within two and a half hours of our plane touching down.

Our room:

Bathroom:

Bedroom:

DS12 posing:

Our first towel animals:

The artwork:

We headed for RnRC, but the wait was 140 and FPs were long gone. Then we tried ToT, the wait was 40, but we had dinner ressies that meant we couldn’t risk it. So we wandered stores and went to Sci Fi for dinner. DS12 had the Shrimp Penne and I had the Grilled Chicken Bruschetta sandwich. After dinner we rode GMR and then headed to Fantasmic! to queue for the second show. The queue was very crowded and the first show took a long time to exit, so we were late starting. The show had been down all week, so there were a lot of folks trying to squeeze it in before leaving. We got great seats, front row and slightly left of centre. The show was as wonderful as always.

After Fantasmic! We crashed for the night.

 

[Monty]

Day Two – MK & the Meet Monty Meet & Dole Whip Party!
We started our day with Tonga Toast:

Me before splitting with DS:

DS with his share [I asked him to “look normal”]:

Then we were off to MK. We were walking down the ramp from the Monorail as they counted down to opening.

We bee-lined for Space Mountain, but the line was already out into the plaza, so we grabbed FPs. Then saw COP:

DS12 took some pics, but most were blurry…

We rode TTA:

The Space queue:

From there we went to MILF. Figment1986 and his mom were in the park and went to find breakfast, we were going to use our Space FPs after MILF, but they were waiting as we exited. So we went to Space to see if we could find a friend of his who might get him into the FP line with us, but no luck. So we rode TTA again. We tried to get handicap access to Buzz, but were given a group FP instead. Then we headed over to Peter Pan and rode it. After PP, we split up so DS and I could use our Space FPs before the Meet.

Then it was time for the Official Meet Monty Meet & Dole Whip Party!

DS12 and I arrived to find Katie [SweetMagic] and Daniel waiting at Aloha Isle. Shortly thereafter, Shannon [EPCOT.nut] and her husband Tom arrived followed by Robert [Figment1986] and his mom, Chris. Then came Jim [jvrabel] and his girlfriend Susan. We seemingly had just missed Rain [Rainfully], who had thought the Meet started at 12, her wait overlapped with Katie’s arrival, but they didn’t know they were feet apart and Rain left moments before DS and I arrived.

Dole Whips and floats of varying types were purchased and consumed. Then we were off to enjoy some rides! First up was Jungle Cruise. We had an excellent skipper named Tommy, he really got into the script and deviated just enough to be great. Then we headed to POTC, while in the queue, Marcia [SillySpook13] texted me to find out where we were. Unfortunately, texting wasn’t entirely instantaneous, so she and Marcus [loweyan] went for Dole Whips, not knowing where the rest of us were. After POTC, we finally got our communications straightened out and we all met up again at Aloha Isle and took an almost full group shot [borrowed shamelessly from Figment1986]:

In the pic, from left to right:

Susan, Jim, Marcus, Marcia, Robert, Shannon, Tom, DS12, Me, Katie and Daniel. Robert’s mom Chris was taking the picture.

From there, Robert, Chris, Jim and Susan left. The rest of us went to HM and rode. The wait said 40 Minutes, but we didn’t notice, we were chatting away merrily and being amused by the mother in front of us telling her daughter it wasn’t scary at all [after the stretching room, we overheard mom telling her that she’d “forgotten that part, but the rest isn’t scary at all] LOL! DS and I hadn’t been on since the refurb, we both loved the changes. Then Marcia and Marcus had to leave. The last die-hards headed off to Philharmagic and watched it. Finally, it was time to part company, but not before Katie and Shannon committed to organise more mini-meets…

DS and I headed over to BTMRR, but the wait was 70, so we didn’t ride. We watched Country Bears’ Jamboree, DS was bemused… Then we were off to dinner at Tony’s Town Square. I had the Shrimp Pasta and DS had the Cannelloni. Both were delicious! While we were eating, Heather [Aurora25] texted to find out if we were still in MK. Once again, communications were less than perfect and we couldn’t seem to coordinate. She didn’t receive my replies. We went and rode BTMRR, the posted wait was 70, and it was fairly close to that. We went and watched the Tiki Room. While in the show, Heather phoned [I tried to answer, not wanting to miss an opportunity to meet], but the show was too loud. I called her back after we got out and she told me I was a dufus for answering in the show… Then we decided we’d watch Wishes from our separate vantage points and meet up at POTC afterward.

Watched Wishes [it was great].

Finally met Heather and her mom at POTC and rode, then we rode BTMRR, HM and Buzz. Heather’s mom wasn’t feeling well, so she left. We grabbed some drinks at the Lunching Pad and rode Buzz on some FPs we’d been handed by other guests [they gave us five, we passed off two to another group and used three ourselves]. After that, Heather left. DS and I rode Space one last time and then headed for Poly. We wanted to take the launch across, but it was roped off. We headed up to the Resort Monorail, but were waiting a while when they announced that the next train to arrive was having technical problems and wouldn’t be loading. They had to bring the Monorail tow-truck to recover it. So, they put on launches and we got our wish after all [with some significant delay] and rode the boat back to Poly.

 

[Monty]

Day Three – AK

Abbreviated day at AK today. After sleeping in we got dressed and headed over. There was a fairly long wait for an AK bus. Then we waited for a bus in front of us to load wheelchairs at GF [how dumb is it to have a deluxe hotel with a bus stop that only fits one bus at a time?]. Finally arrived at AK 1130-ish.

We met up with Marcia at the tipboard and said a quick hello. Then we were off to EE for FPs. Then we had CS lunch at Yak & Yeti, we shared an order of egg rolls, I had Kung Pao Beef, DS had Crispy Honey Chicken, for dessert he had Chocolate cake and I had the Mango pie. All very good.

From there we rode Safari. DS took loads of pics, but most were not great… He did get a few though:

We grabbed a Frozen Lemonade in Harambe, then headed to Flights of Wonder. After Flights, we rode our 50th ride on EE, we celebrated by getting the ride pic:

After EE we rode Dinosaur and Primeval Whirl twice. Then it was back to Y&Y, this time for TS. We shared pot stickers, then I had the Mahi Mahi and DS had the Tamarind Chicken. I found the fish a lot tougher that I remember Mahi Mahi being when I’ve had it before and the sauce was a lot more spicy than I’d expected in WDW. DS loved the chicken. I had more Mango pie and DS had the brownie/chocolate fudge sundae for dessert. After dinner we headed to DTD by way of AKL and did our requisite Lego store visit [after I’d stocked up on Disney attire at WOD].

 

[Monty]

Day Four – Epcot

Started off with more Tonga Toast [a theme for this trip].

Then we were off to Epcot. We started by FPs for Soarin’ and rode right away as well [35 min wait]. Then we rode SSE for the first time sine the rehab. The updated AAs were nice to see and Dame Judi does a fine narrative. We both really enjoyed the video future with our faces superimposed. On exiting, our faces were randomly placed on the globe [we hadn’t been asked where we live this ride]. Then we rode Space with a 30 min wait for Orange [we’ve never tried Green]. We grabbed FPs for TT and then rode Soarin’ [the standby wait was 70 now]. After Soarin’ we stopped at the fountain for pics:

We tried unsuccessfully to see the Epcot 25 display, all that’s left are some signs outside the room where it was:

We headed to WS and had lunch at the Rose & Crown, we shared an order of Fish & chips and both had Baileys’ Trifle for dessert.

After lunch we wandered WS, rather aimlessly. We saw Reflections of France for the first time. Beautiful film. We went to Maelstrom, but the wait was 40 so we skipped it and rode Grand Fiesta:

After that we went back and rode TT on our FPs, then rode Space twice and rode Universe of Energy. Then it was off to Canada. We watched the new movie, it was really good. Then we checked in at Le Cellier. We chatted for a while with the girls in the lobby while waiting for our table. The conversation was mostly about who had the most Tim Horton donut shops in their hometown! LOL Then we went in for dinner. We had a trainee serving us who did a fine job. His trainer had served us the last time we ate there and remembered us. We both ordered the Cheddar Cheese soup and had Shrimp and Bay Scallops for dinner. We were too stuffed for dessert…

After dinner we rode SSE one more time and then watched IllumiNations. We met up with Laura and rode the Monorail back to TTC. We walked through the Poly grounds, stopping to watch some of the P&PP fireworks from the shore. Then Laura went to wait in a hammock while I got DS started on his bedtime routine [he’s very reliable, so once he was started, I could leave him and trust that he’d go to sleep after reading a few chapters of a book]. On my return, I tried to snap a quick shot of Laura lounging in a hammock waiting for me, but she spotted me at the last moment and I got her lunging to get out of the picture:

We chatted for a while on the beach, Rain joined us and we chatted some more. Then we headed inside to the Tambu Lounge for drinks… Or so I thought. Rain and Laura stopped about ten feet short of the bar and stood there for about five minutes [I later found out they were trying to figure out if the bar was still open]. Rather than ask they went over to some chairs in the upper lobby area and Rain phoned the resort to ask if the bar was open [yes, the same bar we’d been standing ten feet from and were still within twenty feet of]! Laura phoned BJ [Wilt Dasney] so he “could hear Monty talk” LOL. Anyway, we finally determined that the bar was indeed open [I would have asked if they’d told me that was what they were doing] and proceeded to get Laura drunk on two glasses of white wine… We had a great time and I managed to understand most of their stories through the giggling and laughing.

When I finally got back to the room, DS was comfortably asleep and we had a few more towel animals!

 

[Monty]

Day Five – AK

[an extra towel animal from yesterday – this one had a thank-you note from our Mousekeeper for our ‘gift’ to her]

For some reason, we had a late start again today…

We arrived around lunchtime, got FPs for EE. We ate at the Flame Tree BBQ. DS and I shared a pork sandwich and some onion rings. We wandered some stores and headed for Safari to try for FPs, but they were long gone. The wait was 70, so we skipped it. We walked the Pangani Forest Trail. I picked up the bird spotting guide [because I’m very ‘into’ spotting birds] but they were the wrong kind:

DS took a few pics along the way:

Colourful fishies:

A big Silverback Gorilla:

Who was annoyed with this snoozing gorilla:

and went over and poked him, the snoozing gorilla then pouted for a while:

After the trail, we rode Dinosaur. We grabbed FPs to ride again later. Then we rode EE using our FPs, went back and rode Dinosaur on the FPs. We went and saw ITTBAB. We grabbed our EMH wristbands and headed over to Safari, the wait said 60, we went anyway and only waited about 40. After that we rode EE one more time and waited for Laura [her dad hadn’t been feeling well, so she’d decided to join us]. First we FP’d EE, then rode it Stand-by twice, the first time we rode in the back, the second time in front [the CMs were used to DS and I riding in back all the time and were kinda thrown off when we asked for the front]. Then we headed over to Dinosaur and rode twice for Laura [well… we liked it too]. Then back to EE for one stand-by and one FP ride before heading out for our ADRs at Boma. The restaurant added Laura to our ressie without any problem. Laura actually ate stuff other than Mac & Cheese! I was so proud of her!

 

[Monty]

Day Six – MK

We had intended to take advantage of EMH morning hour at the park, but slept in a bit. We got into Kona Café for [you guessed it] Tonga Toast a little later than our ressies…

We arrived at the park shortly before 9, but no one was checking room keys for EMH. We took pics on Main Street:

We went straight to Space Mountain, FP’d it and since the wait was posted as 20, rode right away. It was walk-on! We rode nine times in a row before our FPs were valid and it had a slight wait the ninth ride. We used our FPs for our tenth ride in under two hours! After Space, we rode TTA:

Then we rode HM again. We rode BTMRR three times, took a break and had ice cream [I had a Mickey Premium, DS had a ice cream sandwich], we rode the steam train all the way around the park and then rode BTMRR two more times. We went over to POTC, [delayed by the three-o’clock parade, which apparently starts from Frontierland at 2:45…] and rode it three times. We had Citrus Swirl rootbeer floats [and liked them about equally to Dole Floats]. We watched the Tiki Room again and then rode HM.

We had dinner at the Plaza Restaurant. We both ordered the Philly Cheesesteak. It was good… no room for dessert though.

After dinner we rode Jungle Cruise, then went on POTC three times. We went and got FPs for Space, then rode stand-by, it was posted as a 30-minute wait, but was less. We had some drinks and then used the FPs on Space.

We went to the Noodle Station to watch wishes. I took lots of pictures, very few were even close to being remotely good:

DS anxiously awaiting Wishes:

Some mediocre pics of Wishes:

After Wishes we rode the launch back to Poly. The driver stopped in the middle of the Seven Seas Lagoon to watch the Electric Water Parade [I think that’s what it’s called], which was stopped off Poly.

 

[Monty]

Day Seven – Epcot

Today started with…. [drumroll please] – Tonga Toast!

Then we were off to Epcot. We FP’d Soarin’ and rode stand-by the wait was about 25. We rode SSE again. This time it asked us where we were from, but when we got to the globe in the aftershow, it wasn’t posting pics… I think it’ll be nice once they’ve worked out the bugs… We rode Mission: Space twice with no wait:

We got FPs for TT and went to Germany for lunch at the Biergarten. I was impressed with the food and the show. We rode M:S again, then headed over to Soarin’ to use our FPs, the wait was posted at 70, but looked longer. There were people lined up almost to the entrance. We rode Universe of Energy, then used our FPs for TT. From there we went to Nemo, still cute, then saw Crush. After that we rode M:S twice and went for dinner.

Waiting for dinner:

We ate at San Angel Inn, the food was mediocre for me. We stated with the Ceviche, marinated seafood in a salza-like sauce. It was very good, but quite spicy-hot. Then I had Mole Poblano, Grilled Chicken over a sort of chocolate chicken stew… the grilled chicken was dry as a bone and the stew was more mush than anything. It was rather un-appetizing. DS had Camerones Con Fideos and really enjoyed it:

DS in the Restaurant:

After dinner we returned to Poly. I sent DS off to Captain Cook’s to get dessert and then he was to go back to the room and shower, get ready for bed and read or watch TV for a while. I headed off to meet Laura at Boardwalk. DS texted me that he couldn’t open the room, so I told him to ask for a new key at the desk. They gave him four successive new keys, none of which worked… Then I told him to ask them to send someone to let him in [preparing to turn around and go back if this failed…]. The person who let him in was left-handed and said it must be a leftie thing, because DS couldn’t unlock the door right-handed at all. In the end, he got in alright and I continued on to meet Laura.

I found her watching one of the many street performers around Boardwalk and we watched for a while. Then we wandered the Boardwalk, we tried to go into the duellin pianos bar, but a $10 for one drink each was too much, we sat and chatted for a while before she had to go and recover her laundry from the machines at her resort. We walked back together and said our goodbyes. I caught the bus to MK and the driver graciously radioed for permission to drop me at Poly. She got permission to drop me at the TTC instead, which was still better than MK at closing…

 

[Monty]

Day Eight – MK & P&PP

Our original plan had been to go to DHS first and then head to MK for the party, but that seemed far too ambitious by the time we got here… So we just went to MK.

We FP’d Space, then rode TTA:

DS finally got a reasonably good pic of the Space Mountain sign:

{IMG]http://photoalbums.wdwmagic.com/data/501/medium/100_1395.JPG[/IMG]

We went and saw Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, apparently I volunteered to buy churros for everybody! From there we went back and rode Space. We went past Splash:

Then we rode BTMRR twice, rode the steam train around the park. DS took some pics:

BTMRR:

Tom Sawyer raft:

and had a conductor volunteer to take our pic:

After the train, we rode BTMRR twice more and then went to Cosmic Ray’s for lunch. I had the Chili Cheese Dog and DS had the double Cheeseburger. I have a question: Is it possible to actually consume a chili cheese dog without making a complete mess and ending up eating most of it with a fork? If it is, I’ll never master it…

After lunch we rode POTC, HM, BTMRR twice and then POTC again. We stopped for more Citrus Swirl Rootbeer floats and the rode POTC again. We went and got our P&PP wristbands and asked when they gave us the loot bags whether there would be candy… They lied and said there would be.

We went and had dinner at Tony’s again, this time we were seated by the most bubbly, enthusiastic CM I’ve ever met – Katie. She really made an incredibly great day even better! Our server was good, but not great. It was hard to get his attention whenever we wanted anything, refills, grated cheese or even the bill. I think he had too many tables assigned to him, because he was very pleasant when he was serving us, just really frazzled… I made a point of thanking him and gave him a bit extra tip over the 18% DDE gratuity. On our way out I stopped to give Katie one of our “Thank-you” cards for brightening our day so much.

After dinner the Party started. We rode TTA and took our last decent pictures [none of my P&PP fireworks pics came out at all]:

Then it dawned on me that I’d left the paperwork for our AP Holder VIP fireworks seating in the room! [insert panic smiley here] So I left DS to his own devices while I went back to get them. I stopped at City Hall to see if there was some way they could reprint them for me, but they couldn’t. The CM said there would be a list and they could just check us off when we got there, but I decided to go get the papers from the room just in case. This turned out to be a really good decision in two ways: 1) They didn’t have a list to get in, if I hadn’t gotten the papers we wouldn’t have gotten into the VIP seating, and 2) When I tried to open the room safe it was broken! The batteries were worn down enough that it would read my credit card, but didn’t have enough power to open the mechanism. So I called and they came to open it, but couldn’t with their electronic key [it didn’t do any better than my credit card]. The guy had to go and get the master manual key to open the safe. If I’d not found out, we would have been in trouble in the morning getting it opened in time before our DME departure time!

When I finally got back to the P&PP, DS had been on Space four times, MILF, Buzz and Speedway. We rode TTA, Buzz, POTC and Space a few more times, saw the fireworks from the Swan Boat dock in front of the Plaza and had a great time collecting bead necklaces and baubles… but NO CHOCOLATE!

 

[Monty]

Day Nine – Going home…

Well, no trip would be complete without Tonga Toast, so naturally we had to brave the wilds of the Kona Café for yet one more adventure before leaving…

After breakfast, we packed up the last few bits and pieces and headed for the DME bus stop for our first leg of the trip home. Sadly, the bus was the one thing that was on time…

Our departure from MCO was delayed 40 minutes because the plane was late getting in. The pilot assured us we’d make up the lost time by flying faster to Toronto, but stronger than expected headwinds meant that was not to be. Then a “luggage jam” occurred in the high-tech luggage transfer system in Toronto and technicians had to manually dislodge the luggage before it could be delivered. We got our bags and finished clearing Customs and arrived at the connecting baggage drop-off at precisely the time our Ottawa-bound connection was supposed to take off! Fortunately for us, it to was delayed and we arrived at our gate just as they called for pre-boarding. We made it into Ottawa an hour late, but still at a reasonable hour.

All in all an absolutely fantastic trip! Can’t wait til we go again in August…

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

Great report - love the photos (even the "borrowed" one :ROFLOL

 

[figmentmom]

Great trip report, Monty! :sohappy:

 

[H20Babie]

Looks like you and DS had a fantastic trip ... and he smiled more, too!

So tell me, what was the gift you left your mousekeeper and thank you card you gave to Katie? I bet they really appreciated the gesture!

I guess I'll be trying the Tonga Toast! :slurp:

 

[EPCOT.nut]

Enjoyed your trip report - I can't believe that you didn't have any dog-tired comments anywhere - that was a jam-packed trip! :lol:

 

[George]

Nice TR. You've ridden EE at least 49 more times than I have. I really like it, but with the kids it's been hard to squeeze it in and last trip it was down the day we were in DAK. I agree with you assessment of the San Angel Inn. I've never been really impressed. I bet you got in a lot of quality bird watching despite the confusion.

 

[Monty]

Looks like you and DS had a fantastic trip ... and he smiled more, too!

So tell me, what was the gift you left your mousekeeper and thank you card you gave to Katie? I bet they really appreciated the gesture!

I guess I'll be trying the Tonga Toast! :slurp:

Before heading down, I made up thank-you cards to give to CMs that went that extra mile... Printed them up on business card stock and handed them out regularly to special CMs or included them in our Mousekeeping tip envelopes. I think that's the "gift" our mousekeeper referred to. They were one of two designs, both with the same text on the back:

 

[SweetMagic]

Very nice :sohappy:

I don't know why, but I am starting to think that when you decide you like something, you enjoy repeating that certain something many, many times :animwink:

I'm glad you enjoyed SSE, and also Impressions de France... that is actually one of my favorite attractions at WDW, I just adore the scenery and music.

I still stand by that promise to continue the mini-meets. Late August is definitely in the works

 

[Monty]

Enjoyed your trip report - I can't believe that you didn't have any dog-tired comments anywhere - that was a jam-packed trip! :lol:

I don't think about it until we're home... Then I'm dog-tired...

 

[Monty]

Nice TR. You've ridden EE at least 49 more times than I have. I really like it, but with the kids it's been hard to squeeze it in and last trip it was down the day we were in DAK. I agree with you assessment of the San Angel Inn. I've never been really impressed. I bet you got in a lot of quality bird watching despite the confusion.

Just a little... The weather was appropriately hot and women were dressed accordingly... :lookaroun

 

[Monty]

Very nice :sohappy:

I don't know why, but I am starting to think that when you decide you like something, you enjoy repeating that certain something many, many times :animwink:

I'm glad you enjoyed SSE, and also Impressions de France... that is actually one of my favorite attractions at WDW, I just adore the scenery and music.

I still stand by that promise to continue the mini-meets. Late August is definitely in the works

Blame DS12 for the multi-rides... A lot of repeats are for his benefit. :king:

 

[EPCOT.nut]

Blame DS12 for the multi-rides... A lot of repeats are for his benefit. :king:

I was very surprised how laid-back and easy-going he is. I kind of figured at the Meet we'd be all these fogies and he'd be bouncing off the walls. :lol: